Author's Notes: Well, another chapter. I'm going to regret this tomorrow when I'm working on my tests. That being said, I enjoyed writing this chapter a lot. I even got a cookie from Phantom for it! Its a little more serious, but you all will see that soon. Thanks for reading all! I want to thank everyone who's reviewed, every review is like a hit of cocaine that makes me want to write more... which causes some confusion when I look at my phone and say I got crack.

Chapter 6: The Haunting House.

Kurenai glanced at her watch. She breathed a sigh of relief seeing that it hadn't been five minutes like it felt, only half a minute, but if Naruto didn't gather his nerve soon they'd never get into the house. Kurenai took another glance about the entrance but just like their first perimeter search they found nothing. She sighed again wondering why she convinced herself Naruto had to take point to get over his fears.

It had been bad enough when the grieving angel statue had scared Naruto and the combined strength of Kiba and Kurenai had to drag the frightened ninja back to see that it was just a statue.

All thoughts were interrupted as the least patient member lost it. "Just get in there already!" Kiba shouted as he kicked Naruto in the rear as hard as he possibly could. Naruto cried out in pain and was thrust through the unlocked door, taking the door with him and crashing to the ground.

Naruto groaned and looked up. "Whoa..." He fumbled out looking inside. He was greeted with a long hallway with several doors on the sides. The only light entering the place was coming from the porch light that Kurenai had lit when they arrived. The flames from the lantern flickering giving the already eerie room an even creepier look.

Kurenai stepped over Naruto and looked at the floor. "Looks like no one's come through here in a long time." She turned toward the blonde as she took out a small flashlight and said, "Seems like you don't have to worry, no footprints means nothing's here."

"Why would that matter?" Naruto asked shivering, and not because it was cold out. "A ghost wouldn't leave foot prints."

Though it was hard for them to see, a loud smack was heard as Kurenai introduced her palm to her forehead. Boy... What's in you is far scarier than anything in here.

Kiba laughed as he walked around the now standing Naruto. "Idiot," he said. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"Keep telling yourself that," Naruto sniped back as Hinata began to inch around him. The four began walking into the old house. A few steps in Kiba stepped on a creaky floorboard and the resulting noise made Naruto cry out.

"Really, Naruto?" Kurenai groaned.

An audible gulp was heard from Naruto as he slowly began moving forward again. Kurenai led them to the first door and saw that it went to a stair case. She sighed and turned around. "Okay, there's two floors, we'll split up-"

"No!" Naruto shouted. Everyone stopped and stared at him. "That's how they get you!" he explained in a terrified whisper.

Kurenai refused to let her hand smack her forehead again. It was getting sore. "There's nothing here, just some old stories, but we do need to check the place out. So," she weighed her own options. Despite her trying not to the think of Naruto as the Kyuubi, she still didn't want to be left with the fox boy, and she had already had a chat with Hinata earlier that day so that left Kiba. "Kiba, you're with me upstairs, Hinata, you're with Naruto down stairs."

She chose to ignore Naruto's complaints and led Kiba upstairs. Kiba grumbled as the stairs creaked with every step. Kurenai turned toward him when she reached the top step. "Is there a problem, Kiba?"

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you're trying to set those two up."

"Is there something wrong with letting a woman be with the man she admires?"

"No, it's just-"

"Why Kiba," Kurenai said drawing the name out in mock pity, "you sound like you are jealous." A genjutsu master would be able to notice the signs, even in this low light; the stiffening of the spine, the moment of hesitation in breath, the slight widening of eyes, all signs of discomfort. Unfortunately for Kiba, Kurenai was a genjutsu master. "Oh," she said in realization, "this will be interesting."

Meanwhile, Hinata was clueless as what to do. This was a side of Naruto she had never seen before. She tried to speak up, but she was afraid her soft voice which very rarely got that much above a whisper would only serve to frighten the terrified blonde.

Naruto's hand shakily reached up to the first door and with a sudden movement jerked the door open. There was almost no light in the room, but from the moonlight coming through the window they could see this had been a living room. Some furniture was still lying around in the room. Naruto let out a sigh of relief seeing nothing supernatural. He entered the room and began checking under the chairs and the couch for anything strange.

"Umm..." Hinata began as she tried to find words to speak. Naruto turned around at her voice and let out a shout, taking a step back and tripping over a chair and falling on the ground. Hinata ran up to him. "Are you okay?" she said, worry helping her form a complete sentence.

"L-Look!" Naruto said pointing at the wall.

Hinata turned around and saw a drawing of a very large figure, almost like a child's drawing. It was thin and stick figure like, the black almost slender figure towered over the two of them, his feet starting on the ground and went up to almost the ceiling where his body began and folded over the room, several arms stretching out across the ceiling.

Hinata looked away from the figure back to the wall, which was heavily graffitied. Words were carved in but were written so poorly and over each other as to make reading almost impossible. She looked back at Naruto. "I-It's just some-"

Naruto shook his head. "This is just like the stories the caretakers told me!" Hinata stared at him for a while, trying to make sense of what he just said. Naruto got up and dusted off the seat of his pants. He saw her confusion. "The caretakers at the orphanage told me ghost stories when I lived there."

"Why?" she asked.

"To make me behave," he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, his eyes never straying far from the drawing. "They'd tell me ghost stories before locking me in for the night." Hinata wasn't sure if he had meant what he had said, or if he had meant 'tucking' instead of locking, but instead of interrupting she let him continue. "They'd tell me stories of a tall thin man. He'd come and take misbehaving brats who no one wanted, and sometimes if a kid was bad enough he'd take them from their parents."

"Those... those aren't real stories."

He chuckled nervously. "Well, I suppose they wouldn't be worrying for you. You're a nice person."

She blushed and shook her head. "That's not why."

"Really?"

"Even if they were true, I'd have you guys to protect me, right?" Hinata began to blush furiously as she realized two things. One being what she just said, the second being that she had just said two whole sentences to Naruto. Despite their current situation, she was proud of herself.

Naruto thought for a moment and he smiled and put his hand on his arm and flexed. "Well! In that case I should be brave in case tall, thin, and slendy shows up to take you right?" Hinata blushed even deeper and nodded barely. "Okay!" Naruto shouted. "On to the next room." He took three steps and his leg fell through a set of rotten floorboards. All the color drained from the young ninja's face. "THE BAD GHOST IS GOING TO EAT ME!" he screamed, struggling against the rooten wood.

Kiba and Kurenai both turned toward the stairs as they heard Naruto scream. Kurenai sighed. "We've got to break that fear somehow..." She turned back to Kiba who was still upset. "Okay, so it seems like you've got some dirt to tell me."

Kiba growled and sulked over to the first room and opened it up. "What's there to tell?" he growled.

"I'm a genjutsu master, Kiba, I can read you like an open book. You like Hinata." She said softly, using the soft edge in her words to try to calm the boy.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said going to to the next room after deciding that the first one was clear.

"Why? This is somewhat important, Kiba."

Kiba whirled around and growled, "'Cause she's got no interest for anyone who's not that dumb ugly blonde!"

Kurenai sighed and walked into the room, she took a quick glance about and sat down in a chair. "Sit down, Kiba."

Akamaru jumped out of Kiba's sweater and trotted into the room, but Kiba folded his arms. "Shouldn't we be checking the house?"

"There's nothing here," she raised an eyebrow, "unless you believe in ghosts as well."

Kiba sat down grumbling. "Then why are we here?"

"Cause someone needs to let them know it is safe," Kurenai said with a sigh. "At least we're getting paid."

"Why'd you have Naruto and Hinata team up?" Kiba asked.

"Actually, I thought now would be a good time for us to have a one-on-one talk," Kurenai told him.

Kiba began to pet Akamaru as his partner crawled in his lap. "About what?"

"The fight you and Naruto had in the woods. I am actually glad that you three pulled together to work with each other."

"Yeah, Hinata said the same thing."

"Does that bother you?"

He stopped petting Akamaru for a half second, most would have missed the sign of agitation but Kurenai spotted it. "Not really."

"Naruto's lucky, huh?"

"Well obviously!" Kiba said. "Stupid dunce doesn't even know how good he has it."

Kurenai nodded. "Most men would kill to have a girl pay that much attention to them."

"I don't get it," Kiba continued. "He's so stupid, why would she have an interest in him?"

"She's very pretty."

"Yeah, she is," Kiba said before the words passed through the filter that he normally sent them through.

Kurenai smiled, the boy in front of her hadn't even realized what he had said. The smile quickly vanished as she realized that it could spell problems later on, but that bridge would be burned when they came to it. To her surprise, Kiba started steering the conversation in a more comfortable line of conversation. "I have a question," he said slowly, unsure.

"About?"

Kiba looked her in the eyes and asked, "What do you think of us?"

She leaned back in the chair rapidly thinking. "What about exactly?"

Akumaru jumped out of Kiba's lap and started going about the room, Kiba shrugged. "Like how do you see the team working out? What about Naruto? Or Hinata? I'd also like an honest opinion of me."

Kurenai stared at Kiba for a moment, making him very uncomfortable in the dead silence of the empty house. "The thing I can see this team doing very well is a guard unit. With your nose and Akamaru's senses, with Hinata's eyes you guys can sense an enemy coming from a distance away."

"What about Naruto?"

"Naruto," Kurenai tried to think of a use for the knuckle head, "can be the brute force unit of the three of you."

"I could do that," Kiba pointed out.

"But your nose is very important for the unit," she pointed out. "We can't lose that."

"I see," Kiba said slowly. So Naruto is what? Kibble? Kiba wondered."What about us individually?"

"Well... You and Naruto want to be the leader of the team, but Naruto doesn't have that potential yet. You make a much better leader so far, but," she stressed it to make sure he was paying attention, "you can't lead them yet." The look on Kiba's face told her she needed to explain further. "You can't just force them. You have to be willing to work into that position," Kiba slowly nodded. "Now, I'll let you know what I think about you. You are a typical male, you understand what you're supposed to do, but when you get an excuse to cut loose you do. Not always a bad thing though, those who don't tend to develop... unique habits," she said wincing trying to keep a particular shade of green out of her mind. She looked up at Kiba, whose brow was furrowed and glancing at Akamaru who was whining. She shook her head. "Just, make sure you have something you can do to relieve your stress between missions that's not training okay?" He nodded. "Good, now, you wanted my opinion on everyone right? Well, my opinion on Hinata is that she's a very sweet girl, a little too innocent for a ninja. But she's got a lot on her plate..." There was a very long pause as she thought about what she could say without fear.

"And Naruto?"

"He's..." the container of the fox and holds inside of him the greatest disaster that ever befell Kohona. The thing that took away my friends, and teammate. "Got a lot of potential and maybe if he learns to focus, and has you and Hinata behind him, he just may reach his goal."

"So," Kiba jumped and looked back, "sounds like they're done downstairs." Kurenai focused for a moment and heard a single pair of footsteps, but didn't get up to call out to the owner. Kiba laughed as the single pair went past their room and went into the next. "Well, seems like Naruto ran off scared."

Kurenai frowned. "I know he's scared but..." she paused as she heard the footsteps again leading into another room.

"There's only one set of footsteps. Though should probably check, I don't want Hinata wandering about her by herself."

"You're so sure that Naruto ran away scared?"

"I'd bet on it."

There was a huge commotion as another set of footprints came running up the stairs. "Kurenai-sensei!"

Kurenai looked at Kiba who held up his hands. "We didn't shake on it!"

Naruto burst into the room, Hinata right behind him. "Kurenai-sensei are you done?"

"Not quite, but I'm glad you two came up to help, I was having a good conversation with Kiba."

"We didn't come to help!"

"But didn't you just start checking the other rooms?"

"No, we just came up..." Naruto said turning toward Hinata, who nodded.

Then they heard the footsteps again. Kurenai quickly counted all the heads in the room. Three genin, one dog, and one jonin. Everyone was accounted for. She remembered the shadow clone jutsu and looked at Naruto, but his wide eyed terror told them that it wasn't a prank. She looked at Kiba. "Smell?"

"Nothing but dust."

"Byakugan?"

Hinata made several hand signs and the veins around her eyes bulged. Her hands began to shake. "There's... n-no one there!"

Kurenai stepped outside, her keen senses telling her exactly where what should have been a person, but in the dark there was nothing. Her hand began to drift upward as she began to rack her brain for any sealing jutsus that she knew in order to combat what shouldn't exist when a cry came out.

"KAGE BUSHIN NO JUTSU!"

From the street, a loud creaking could be heard as wood strained to contain mass it wasn't designed to hold in place. The sound of glass breaking startled people passing by as they returned home from late dinners and working long hours. Cries of pain also began to rise as the first of many orange clad highly visible ninja began to flow out the windows and met with the ground outside. The flood of orange began to grow as wood began to break and more orange thirteen year olds began flowing out of the house. With a last heave the walls of the house gave way as a deluge of clones came pouring out and the with a noise that frightened the entire neighborhood the house finally gave up and collapsed into its foundations.

Kiba scrambled through the clones, viciously swiping at them as he struggled to find the Hyuuga girl. "HINATA!" he cried out as he spotted a rather dull looking jacket in the middle of all the blinding orange. He found her mumbling incoherently and her face a color of red that could only have existed on her. Kiba turned to the clone lying on top of her and grabbed him by collar. "What are you doing, idiot!" he shouted before punching him as hard as he could, hoping that the real one would be able to feel it.

Kurenai, several dozen of clones away, grabbed the nearest Naruto. "How on earth were shadow clones supposed to fight a ghost?" she shouted before slapping him hard enough that all the other clones flinched. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair as she looked at what had formerly been a house. There's no way the Hokage will be happy about this.

She stood up stomping on several Naruto clones in order to find solid ground underneath, "Well, someone is going to have to report this. Kiba, Hinata!" she called out, getting a weak response from Kiba. "You two are dismissed. Naruto!" Every clone in hearing distance responded with a deafening sound and Kurenai began to feel a headache coming on. "You are to clean up this mess. You made it, you deal with it." There were cries of protest and before they could build up Kurenai ran through a very quick set of hand signs and the voices of the many Naruto were silenced in a genjutsu. "I said you are to clean this up. It wouldn't be fair to the other two to make them do this, and I'm going to have enough paperwork today after this debacle," she groaned and wondered if it was too late to decline teaching these three further, or if it was too early to retire.
Hinata began to regain control of her swirling emotions and she realized she was leaning against Kiba. She also realized they left Naruto alone in what remained of the place that terrified him. She stood on her own two feet.

"You okay?" Kiba asked.

Hinata looked back, and brought her fingers to her lips. "S-s-shouldn't... shouldn't we help Naruto?" Hinata glanced at Kiba. She saw him roll her eyes and she felt her heart sink.

Kiba waived it off. "He's fine."

"B-b-but he has to-"

"Hinata, what on earth could we do anyways? We can't help him."

Hinata's eyes went wide as she realized that he was right, she'd be useless. She had to look away and suddenly the street was very interesting. She jumped as she felt a hand on her arm. Kiba waited till she looked him in the eyes. "Is something wrong?"

Was it that obvious?

"N-no. It's f-f-fine," she said shaking her head furiously. "I have to go home. I-I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

"Hinata, do you-" He paused as she quickly ran off. He sighed. "Do you want me to walk you home?" he said to the air where she had been. Akamaru whined from Kiba's jacket. "Yeah, that could have gone better."

Hinata ran off toward her home, but before she got close to her home she stopped and caught her breath. She slowly began to walk toward the gates to her home. Running would not be tolerated by her family. It was disgraceful to be in rush.

Hinata passed through the main gate to her home and looked across the compound. She hung her head seeing that no one came to greet her. She wistfully looked back on the days her sister was glad to see her, before she had begun training with her father. She barely remembered her mother looking at her as she walked into the compound. She missed those days, before she knew what the words useless and weak meant.

She shook her head, refusing to let her memories get the best of her. She was a kunochi, and ghosts of the past weren't to affect kunochi, let alone a Hyuuga.

As she wandered through the house toward her room she heard a few of the servants begin to talk about her. Not openly of course, but in whispers. The servants were very skilled at not being seen by the people walking through the house, and their whispers seemed to come from the walls themselves.

"There she goes."

Hinata winced as she heard the whispers beginning. No one dared speak aloud, only a few knew how her father really felt about her and didn't dare risk his ire, but they still looked at her like the oddity she was.

"Ah, it's Hiashi's daughter."

Hinata's lips twisted into a deep frown. She wanted to be viewed as Hinata Hyuuga, a member of the proud Hyuuga clan and not the daughter of some man. She didn't compare to him in any way. He was cold, calculating, and strong. She unfortunately was a kind and compassionate girl, and was a polar opposite of any of the clan heads.

"Her sister won the other day."

Hinata's shoulders slumped in shame. Her younger sister had beaten her, yet again. Her sister was much more talented than Hinata, anyone watching them spar could see that. A long time ago, Hinata had been even with Hanabi. However, when their father noticed that Hanabi had more talent he began to train her, and left Hinata alone.

"Too bad Neji can't be the heir."

Hinata instinctively cringed. Neji, her cousin, was everything the Hyuuga clan was supposed to be. He was strong, he was talented, he was proud, and, more than anything else, he was cold. She bore him no ill will, but she was afraid of him. Nothing escaped his eyes, and he knew which buttons to push to inflict emotional pain on her.

And he enjoyed pushing those buttons.

"She hasn't started the advanced Jyuuken training?"

Hinata fought back tears. Most got through the basic Jyuuken training before graduating from the academy, however Hinata had no talent for it. She still wasn't done learning the basics. It didn't help that her instructors didn't care. They showed her the forms and then let her practice. Not like how it had used to be with her father.

"I heard she's going to become one of us, and her sister will remain main house."

Hinata began to feel her hands go numb, and her typical graceful walk began to be become less graceful and much faster as she began to quickly walked through the halls of her own home. She began to rush to get to the saftey and privacy of her room. As she she neared her father's study in the center of the house she slowed her walk. She did not want to get yelled at for her disgraceful haste.

"Sir," she heard a voice say from the study, "your daughter was on two missions today, one to catch the cat Tora and another to check out what's been called the youma house."

"The happenings of such small trivial matters do not matter to me," she heard her father say.

"Yes, sir, sorry sir."

Hinata lost the energy to run. She resignedly continued her slow walk through her haunting house.